Judge resigns after claims of influence

Women subject of ethics panel’s letter

A district court judge in Randolph County agreed to resign his post after being accused by the state’s judicial watchdog of offering to influence cases involving his wife and a different woman, according to information released Friday.

Judge John Throesch, an elected judge in Randolph County since 2001, submitted his letter of resignation to Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Thursday. The resignation became effective at the end of Friday.

David Sachar, director of the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission, Friday released a copy of his own letter to the judge. In that letter, Sachar presented the facts of the commission’s case.

According to the commission’s letter, Throesch began sending online messages to a female defendant in his courtroom in 2018 that soon progressed from “friendly to flirty.”

Throesch eventually recused from the woman’s case when she appeared in his courtroom in July 2018 to enter a guilty plea. After that, his communication with the woman became sexual in nature, according to the letter, and he offered to help her with her charges.

Sachar’s letter said the messages included one sent from Throesch on July 26, 2018, telling the woman, “Message me first thing in the morning and I will call. Make sure you don’t tell anyone ur [sic] talking to me for lots of reasons.”

The next day, according to Sachar’s letter, the woman sent explicit photographs to the judge on his cell phone.

On a different matter, Sachar’s letter states that a year prior, Throesch called the mayor and police chief of Pocahontas seeking a “professional courtesy” after his wife received a traffic ticket.

“You used unprofessional language and exhibited demeanor unbecoming of the

robe,” the commission’s letter said of the incident.

While the commission’s letter does not allege that Throesch was actually able to influence either case, it found that the judge’s actions had made him “ineligible and unworthy of the robe.”

Sachar said the commission began investigating Throesch in September 2018 after Sachar heard allegations through sources and news reports and personally filed a complaint.

Throesch reached an agreement to resign earlier

this spring, rather than contest the charges, Sachar said.

Throesch did not respond to a message left seeking comment. A clerk at the district courthouse said he was not at work Friday.

By agreeing to resign, Throesch accepted responsibility for the ethics violations, but did not admit to any criminal or civil wrongdoing.

The resignation also makes Throesch ineligible to again serve as a judge in Arkansas.

In January 2019, a news blog, NEA Report, detailed Throesch’s alleged dispute with officials over his wife’s traffic ticket.